The catalog
The wait
Sensual literary fiction about waiting: being told to hold still, and the charge that builds in the holding.
- Old flames1 min
Couples Skate
The rink closes for good tonight, and he is already at the rail with his hand out before she has decided anything.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Aloe
Nineteen summers in the same rented cottage, a sunburn shaped exactly like her swimsuit, and a bottle of aloe neither of them still pretends is only first aid.
Read it → - Slow burns1 min
Fair Weather
Eight months of the same umbrella and the same six blocks to the station, and never once a reason to close it until tonight, when the rain stops and she doesn't.
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His Move
Eleven minutes on a single move, a house rule against touching until the game ends, and a knight he will not set down.
Read it →- Old flames1 min
Second Coat
Fourteen years married, and behind the switch plate she finds what he wrote on the wall the week they moved in.
Read it → - Strangers1 min
Party Wall
Four months of knowing him only through the plaster, and tonight she knocks back instead of turning the music down.
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The Overture
The glasshouse held one lamp, one fogged pane, and the six inches neither of them had closed yet.
Read it →- Old flames1 min
Reduction
The sauce only gets made on nights when there's no hurry in the house, reduced slow over the lowest blue flame until it's dark and close to gone, and utterly forgotten the moment he says he only came in to taste it.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Line-Dry
A summer wind takes the last sheet off the line and hides them from the whole ordinary day for exactly as long as it takes him to cross the yard.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Reservation
Ten minutes late for the table they'd looked forward to all month, and the only thing left to decide was whether either of them still wanted to go.
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The Latch
Six months married, and neither of them had learned how to say goodnight to a lingering guest without wanting to close the door on all of it at once.
Read it →- After dark1 min
The Late Shift
She came home past one expecting the dark and the quiet — she didn't expect him to be awake in it, waiting, with the lamp still off.
Read it → - Slow burns1 min
The Roof
Every falling star was an excuse to stay one more minute — until the sky wasn't the reason anymore.
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Lacquer
Ten wet, ruined-if-touched fingernails and no way to stop him — she had never held still on purpose before, and never wanted to less.
Read it →- After dark1 min
The Hum
Two in the morning, heat that wouldn't break — and the only cold place in the apartment was the one neither of them closed the door on.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Crossing
The last ferry takes twenty minutes, and neither of them has said what they're both counting down.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Four Hands
The party thins to the kitchen and the porch, and the piano remembers the piece they used to play before either of them does.
Read it → - Slow burns1 min
Hold Still
She said she'd cut his hair for practice, and he sat still and let her, the way he'd been meaning to for eleven years.
Read it → - Slow burns1 min
The Knot
Lie down, she said, and he did, and neither of them called it anything yet.
Read it → - Strangers1 min
Ice
Two strangers meet at the ice machine at the end of the hall, two in the morning, and neither one goes back to their own door.
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Safelight
The timer had ninety seconds left on it, and neither of them had said the thing they'd come down to the darkroom to avoid saying.
Read it →- Old flames1 min
Kindling
The wood was always too green and the damper always stuck — twenty-two years, and neither of them had thought to fix either problem.
Read it → - Slow burns1 min
Count of Three
He'd asked her to teach him one dance, one song — a pretext, and they both knew it, and neither said so.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Adagio
Neither of them had thought to return the ticket — not the seat, and not, it turned out, each other.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Windfall
The last tomatoes had split in the heat, and so, without warning, had his resolve to just call her in for dinner.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Carry-On
She took the last folded shirt back out of the bag and set it down: some things could wait until five.
Read it → - Mornings after1 min
Do Not Disturb
The knock came at nine, and she kept her eyes shut to see what he'd do about it.
Read it → - Mornings after1 min
The Second Towel
She'd half-decided to dress and go before he woke, until she saw the towel he'd folded for her, on purpose, while she slept.
Read it → - After dark1 min
Nine Floors Up
The windows were painted shut, so they climbed to where nobody below could see them, and that changed what the night was allowed to cost.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Close Work
He said only that he trusted no one else's hands with tomorrow's version of himself — and she still hadn't thrown out the good scissors.
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The Last Train
The board kept pushing his arrival back a minute at a time, and she let it, because a minute was a length of time she still knew how to hold.
Read it →- Old flames1 min
Kitchen Light
The house had never been this quiet. Neither had they, once — and they'd forgotten how to fill it.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Long Way
Sundays were for the dog. Nobody had agreed the walk home would take an hour.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Wool
He’d come for the coat. She’d spent four winters deciding it was hers.
Read it → - After dark1 min
Small Hours
The streaming menu kept asking if they were still watching, and neither of them reached for the remote to answer it.
Read it → - Mornings after1 min
Daylight
The street named what the night had kept quiet, and neither of them minded.
Read it → - After dark1 min
The Waterline
She let the candle burn down to its last inch before she got in, and stayed exactly as long as it lasted.
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The Hour Before
She dressed an hour early on purpose — this was the part of the evening she refused to spend before she had to.
Read it →- Old flames1 min
The Driveway
The taillights went around the bend, and for the first time in eighteen years the driveway had nothing left to wait for.
Read it → - After dark1 min
Heat Lightning
The power had failed at eleven, and by midnight the only light left came from a sky that never bothered to thunder.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Storm Windows
The window over the lake never caught on the first try — not once in eleven years, and not tonight either.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Repair
She called because the window was stuck — and because at eleven on a Wednesday, she couldn't think of who else to want.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Tuesdays
He didn't say her name — he just set a drink beside hers on the rail, gin without asking, and stood close enough that his warmth cut through four years.
Read it → - Mornings after1 min
Still
He was already awake when she opened her eyes, and neither of them reached for their phones.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Deep End
She saw him before he saw her — and had exactly three seconds to decide what to do with that.
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The Garden Door
They stood outside the party's noise, close enough that waiting felt like its own kind of touching.
Read it →- Old flames1 min
The Line
She had a reason — something practical — but the moment he said her name, the reason became the least interesting thing on the line.
Read it → - Mornings after1 min
The Other One
He found it on the nightstand before she woke, and left it where it was.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Two Blocks
She knew what he meant and what he didn't mean, and she got in the car.
Read it → - After dark1 min
Already Awake
She knew he was awake—had known it for over an hour—and neither of them had said a word, which was its own kind of conversation.
Read it → - Mornings after1 min
The Drawer
She reached for the zipper herself, and he said there was coffee, and neither of them meant what they said.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Overhang
He didn't see her until he was already beside her, and by then it was too late for either of them to pretend.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Area Code
She hadn't deleted his number — just renamed it, as if the phone wouldn't know.
Read it → - Slow burns1 min
North Light
He had not been allowed to see the painting until now, and she understood, brush still in hand, that she had been waiting for exactly this.
Read it → - Strangers1 min
Three Blocks
She had chosen the table nearest the window for the view, not for company.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Muscle Memory
His whole body was a familiar territory she'd lost the right to cross.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Morrison
Eight years, and he still looked up before she reached him — some peripheral awareness of her that had outlasted everything else.
Read it → - Mornings after1 min
What the Light Does
Her shoes were in her hand before she remembered she didn't want to go.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Interval
They had agreed on dinner, nothing more — and both of them knew exactly what that meant.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Still Life
He walked in at ten past nine, and she discovered she had been waiting.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Wedding
They’d sat us at the same table. Someone, somewhere, had thought that was kind.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Twelve Years
Twelve years in, he still asked. That was the thing about him — he still asked.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
The Last Box
There was one box left, and they both knew it was never really about the box.
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Don’t Tell Me
She had her hand on his chest. Two fingers. The lightest pressure possible.
Read it →- Strangers1 min
Atlanta
The train had been delayed an hour by the time she sat down across from him.
Read it → - Mornings after1 min
Morning
She made coffee in his kitchen like she lived there. Maybe she did. Maybe she always had.
Read it → - Slow burns1 min
Three Buttons
The whole dinner could have been a fire and we wouldn’t have moved.
Read it → - Old flames1 min
Reunion
He recognized her shoulders before her face — the way the air around her had been carved out specifically.
Read it → - After dark1 min
The Wait
She told him to wait. Just wait. The kitchen island was cold against her palms.
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